Which is better, cycling or walking?
Who doesn’t enjoy prioritizing their health and fitness?
In our hectic day-to-day lives, prioritizing our health becomes essential for long-term well-being.
When it comes to maintaining health and fitness, a variety of exercises, including cycling and walking, offer beneficial options tailored to individual needs and preferences. However, a common question often arises: “Is cycling better than walking?”
“Is cycling better than walking?”
To be completely honest, both exercises contribute equally to our health and well-being, but they can also lead to discomfort and issues if not performed correctly.
Is Cycling better than walking?
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In this article, we will be looking after every aspect of both walking as well as cycling in detail.
CYCLING – LESS TIME – CONSUMING
In an era where we are already short of time, we avoid exercising as we want to save our time and put that same time in something which in turn will provide us monetary benefits.
In such a situation, understanding the literal meaning of the proverb “health is wealth”.
The proverb underscores health as humanity’s greatest blessing, emphasizing the significance of maintaining our well-being. When we prioritize our health, wealth naturally follows, as a healthy body and mind synergize to yield effective and efficient outcomes.
Research suggests that a healthy adult should aim for 10,000 steps a day, equivalent to approximately 8 kilometers. The time taken to cover this distance depends on factors such as walking speed and stride length. Consequently, cycling emerges as a preferable option for those concerned with time efficiency. Opting to cycle allows individuals to cover more ground in the same timeframe compared to walking.
CYCLING – LEADS TO MORE CALORIES REDUCTION
When we start to exercise, we are focused on burning more calories in lesser time as we don’t have much patience to see the results of exercising on our body weight. So, here is when choosing cycling becomes an ideal option for all of us.
Do try walking and cycling for the same duration on two different days. In order to count the total calories burned, you can download various apps available on your android/ios for this purpose OR if you have a fitness band or watch which keeps a check on the total burned calories during a day, wear that watch at the time of exercising.
When you are done, you will get to see that calories burned by cycling is more than calories burned by walking. And, the results may get even better if the intensity of cycling increases. I think you may also like reading Benefits of White Chocolate.
CYCLING – HELPS IN BUILDING MUSCLES
Cycling not only helps in burning calories but it also helps in building muscles. Although cycling is good for your overall health but it mainly focuses on the development of the leg muscles which include muscles of the calves, quads, glutes and hamstrings.
And once you develop muscles, it gets easier to lose fat as muscle tissues contribute in burning more calories than the fat tissues.
Therefore, it can be said that cycling leads to dual benefit which are, burning calories as well as building leg muscles.
CYCLING – DISCOVER NEW SITES DAILY
If you are someone who doesn’t want to exercise on the same route daily or bored of going through the same route daily, cycling is an option which you guys should opt for.
With new routes comes new sites and getting to see a different beautiful site daily while exercising, helps in keeping you motivated towards your goal which is to be achieved.
Although, you can change your route of walking as per your convenience but you can’t cover a long distance just by walking as you have a limited time period for exercising and you may get tired of walking for such a long time.
On the other hand, you get to explore new routes or new sites daily if you go for cycling and that too within the time available to you and without even stressing your legs much.
The more the speed of cycling, the more sites to be discovered by you.
You can also plan your next Summer Vacation holiday trip to a beautiful Hill Station to enjoy cycling around mountains
CYCLING – FOR PEOPLE WEIGHING MORE
Walking for a longer duration for people weighing more than their ideal weight (according to BMI) becomes a little difficult as walking causes pressure on their joints. As a result, they start experiencing leg cramps and the situation gets more worse if the person is already having some joint issues.
We don’t feel like exercising the next day if the exercise which we are doing is causing some kind of discomfort to our body. It’s a normal human behavior.
And if we keep on skipping our workout every other day, we will lose regularity in the process, which will hinder us from achieving our goal of losing weight and staying fit.
So, for people weighing more should go for cycling as their form of exercise as it will help them in producing much better results than walking.
WALKING : ZERO INVESTMENT
If you choose cycling as your option for exercising, you need to invest in buying a good cycle as well as safety accessories (in order to protect you from any injury in case you fall). Apart from investing in buying equipment and other accessories, you need to spend some money in the maintenance of the cycle also.
On contrast, choosing walking as your option for exercising requires zero investment as the things require for walking are something which everyone already has. These things include a pair of comfortable shoes and a track suit. And in case you want to buy a new pair of shoes, you can without stressing much over the budget.
As by now you must have got a rough idea of your expenses if you go with cycling, you can choose accordingly. In case you don’t wish to go beyond the budget set by you or you want to opt for a budget – friendly method of staying fit, walking is what you should opt for.
TREADMILL VS EXERCYCLE
Okay, so this is something interesting which you people should know.
Many among you choose to exercise indoors, either by taking a gym membership or by buying cardio equipment for your home workout session. There are multiple machines which a gym has but as the blog talks about only two forms of exercise (walking and cycling) we will be further discussing about a tread mill and an Exercycle in this blog.
We are aware of the fact that if we want to lose weight, we need to burn more calories than we actually consume. So, it becomes necessary to know about the exact way of burning calories by using a tread mill as well as an Exercycle.
Try performing a task by spending one hour each on both the machines, a tread mill as well as an Exercycle. And look for the total calories burned when an hour gets over.
You will succeed in burning more calories by walking on a tread mill in comparison to peddling an Exercycle as when you walk on a tread mill, you have an option to put in on incline as well as to increase the speed. Putting it on incline or increasing the speed results in more body exhaustion which further leads to more sweating and hence, brings you a little closer towards your goal of fat loss.
But if your goal is toning of legs or strengthening of leg muscles, go for an Exercycle as it focuses on the lower body more unlike a tread mill.
EXTEND YOUR SOCIAL CIRCLE
When we have a company of people (having the same motive as ours) to accompany us while exercising, the journey of losing weight gets easier as well as enjoyable. On the days when we will be feeling lazy or not wanting to exercise, these people are going to push us towards our goal and vice – versa.
Walking and cycling both help us in extending or expanding our social circle.
BENEFITS OF CYCLING AND WALKING REGULARLY ON OUR PHYSICAL HEALTH
Better Blood Circulation
Both cycling and walking if done consistently help in better circulation of blood in our body. When the blood circulates efficiently in our body, our blood pressure remains normal and even gets lowered if someone is having high blood pressure.
Helps in lowering the risk of Diabetes
Diabetes is something which is becoming more prevailing in today’s world and our lifestyle is to be blamed for increase in number of people getting diabetes annually. But if we go for cycling or walking daily, the risk of people getting diabetes will reduce gradually and their overall health will get better.
Helps in Avoiding Asthma
No one prefers to walk in order to reach a particular place even if the place is situated at a walking distance of just two minutes, we prefer using vehicles which work on petrol or diesel instead. As a consequence, the pollution is rising by each passing day and even young adults are becoming a victim of a serious breathing problem like asthma.
We can contribute towards lowering the pollution levels by limiting the use of pollution – causing vehicles and using cycles or just walking to cover a short distance. An environment with less pollution will provide us with more benefits when we go for walking as the oxygen levels would be apparently more hence, making our lungs healthy.
How much time shall we invest in cycling or walking daily?
In order to remain fit and healthy, you need not to spend hours in cycling or walking. Giving just half an hour to either of them is enough to keep you fit. But if your goal is weight loss, then you must need to invest more time in the form of exercise chosen by you.
CONCLUSION
I have provided you with different aspects of cycling as well as of walking. Both the forms of exercise are excellent in keeping our body fit and healthy but it depends entirely on us what we want to opt for in accordance to what suits our body more and as per our comfort. You can successfully burn calories by both, walking as well as cycling but we need to be very careful while choosing the method of burning calories as we don’t want our body to suffer because of the method we choose in this process of fat loss.
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HAPPY EXERCISING !